This Model Had Fashion Week Nightmares

This Maybelline Model Used To Have NYFW Nightmares (Just Like We Do)

When said out loud, "Fashion Week" has a double meaning — and for anyone who's ever been a part of all the action, feeling weak is not only par for the course, it's often the reason we love fashion to begin with. So, in honor of the moments of chaos, beauty, and excitement that made us feel weak, we present My Fashion Week-ness: a compilation of accounts from some of the industry's biggest players. They're spilling their most memorable stories from Fashion Weeks gone by, and the ones that keep them coming back for more.

Working in fashion can sometimes be a bit overwhelming. With trends traveling at the speed of light, it takes a lot of confidence and energy to keep up with a pace that verges on relentless. Model Erin Wasson (who's wearing Levi's 711 jean at the left) is no stranger to this feeling, as one of the few whose career has been so successful she's been able to diversify beyond fashion. She was the face of Maybelline for pretty much the entire aughts, she designs capsule collections for PacSun, and she also dabbles in acting. (For the superfans out there, you may have spotted her in Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.) But Wasson's path to career freedom didn't come without several major obstacles, and here she reveals some Fashion Week nightmares that once kept her up at night.

"I used to have reoccurring dreams that I walked into the agency and ripped up every picture I ever took into a thousand pieces," Wasson recalled. "It would be like snow falling from the sky. I just obliterated my entire character in the movie that is fashion. But then I saved myself, because I started doing things that were more than just [being in] a photograph.

"I’m really nostalgic over working with Alex [Wang] for that time," she said. "Being able to take that and organically move into design, and [Elle creative director] Joe Zee letting me be a guest stylist and editor of Elle for a couple of shoots…. I always felt that everybody had a label, and we’re all supposed to stay within our labels in the fashion world. When Alex was like, 'I want you to style,' that really shifted something for me. Then I was able to go into jewelry, then I was doing other things, and I was all of a sudden wildly fulfilled from out of nowhere — one person believing in you, in an outside way."For all things Fashion Week around the world — including street style snaps, designer news, and the trends you'd actually wear — head over to Refinery29's Fashion Month hub.